Xbox Live Founder and Engineering Lead Leaves Microsoft

Boyd Multerer departs after working with the company for 18 years.

Many Xbox gamers may have never heard of Boyd Multerer but his work has played an instrumental role in billions of hours of entertainment in the past decade or so. The man is responsible for founding Xbox Live and also created the XNA language that played a big role in development. Multerer recently announced on Twitter though that he has left the company after 18 years of service.

As a former former engineering leader, Multerer tweeted, “Goodbye Microsoft. It was a good run. Xbox was Great! Time to do something new.”

Xbox Live was first made available on the original Xbox in 2002 when it launched alongside Bungie’s Halo 2, thus ushering in an era of online console gaming. The success of the platform has only grown since then, incorporating free games, demo, discounts, a marketplace and much more along with the original online multiplayer framework.

What are your thoughts on Multerer leaving? Let us know in the comments.

Phil cleaning house . “Get rid of , the not so necessary anymore staff”

TY for all your great work with live ….but , (lol) they’re doing things different now (different approach) ..good luck where ever you go ..

d0x360

Chances are the guy just wanted to do something new. He’s probably got a ton of money and doesn’t need to work as hard anymore. Dont blame him. Back when Xbox live was in beta I got to play mech assault and motogp with this guy quite a bit. Such a cool community we beta testers built especially the first wave of like 1000 people.

I got a box of Xbox live branded chocolates that year from them for valentines day. I posted pics of it to my twitter a few months back. Good times.